Holly and I realized that we had no plans for the Fourth of July. You know, once it occurred to us that it's this weekend already. (How did THAT happen? SLOW DOWN, SUMMERTIME!)
We are thinking, therefore, that it might be our civic duty to invent Drinks Around America! in celebration. You may recall Drinks Around the World! which we created a couple of years back, in the name of cultural understanding. Which is, of course, an important ideal, but not to the exclusion of patriotism.
We're not sure yet where or what we'll drink, which is where you come in, Internet. Of course, we've got our own ideas about how to drink our way around the various regions of our great country (you know, symbolically.) I could tell you what we came up with, but I'd rather just hear what you've got before putting ideas into your pretty little heads. Prefrence may be given to drinks with the actual location (city, state, region) in the drink name, but all those representing areas of our great nation will be considered.
And all capped off with an apple pie shot and two Advil, as Uncle Sam intended.
Because I am not a monster, I give my student a break in the middle of her three-hour sessions. We have a snack and play Guess Who? (this parenthetical aside represents me giving up on attempting to correctly punctuate the end of that sentence.) I've noticed some things about this game.
First of all, there are thirty people pictured. Five of them are women. FIVE. Half the population is women and yet Milton Bradley, the misogynist, believes we only count for one-sixth. Also, it makes it really hard to win if you draw a woman.
Not only that, but two of these five women are wearing hats. Girl hats. What percentage of the female population actually wears honest to goodness women's hats? Milton Bradley would have us believe that it is nearly half. This leaves us with more redheads in the game than non-hat-wearing women. Redheads, genetic aberrations that they are, make up one to two percent of the world's population. Yet there they are, all over my Guess Who? game board, represented in greater numbers than women who are not either balding or at the Kentucky Derby.
We are also led to believe that a stunning percentage of men wear either a mustache or beard, but none have both concurrently. Oh, and roughly five percent of the population has no eyebrows, a phenomenon I've yet to encounter, outside of Whoopi Goldberg.
Even more disturbing than all of that, I am starting to think that Joseph and Kyle are kind of cute. It might be time to pick a new game.
Michael Jackson was the first man I can recall wanting to marry. This would have been roughly kindergarten, the Thriller days. You know, back when I was five and he was good-looking. I've wondered whether seeing how he disintegrated after that contributed to putting me off the idea of speedy commitment. You never know how a handsome, seemingly normal guy might go off his rocker.
Michael Jackson was obviously not quite right. It would be nice if his descent from child prodigy to tragic figure would make parents think twice about pushing their kids into the limelight. It doesn't seem that anybody's psyche can handle becoming so famous so quickly. He was an icon, had become one by his early 20s. That's happened to a handful of people ever, and none of them have coped well. Seems it does something to a person.
There's also the genius thing. Because he was one, had to be. He was an innovator in both music and dance. He changed them forever. Creative geniuses see their art in a way that you and I can't, in a way that no one ever has. But true creative geniuses also never seem to last. They are ephemeral, not long for this world, and they don't seem to hold up well during the time they are here. I wonder why that is. It's almost as if opening oneself up to that level of artistry leaves a person especially vulnerable to shattering.
There are lots of opinions about Michael Jackson and whether he really did hurt little boys. I don't think we'll ever know. I did hear someone who knew him well saying that she couldn't believe it of him because he seemed so utterly nonsexual himself. He never mentally grew up to the extent that it was a consideration for him. He was truly the eternal child.
I don't know. What I have discovered in the past few days is that while I knew that I loved his music, I hadn't realized how much of it I loved. There was some on my iPod. PYT, Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, Wanna Be Startin' Something. Watching his videos on MTV (Videos on MTV!) I rediscovered how great so much more of it was. And his dancing. West Side Story may have given the world the dance fight, but Michael Jackson elevated it to an art.
Maybe he wasn't a good person. Maybe he was just exceedingly odd. Maybe he was broken by a cruel father, the crush of fame, the necessity of being a shut-in, or the fragility of his own mind. But no matter what you think of Michael Jackson the man, his art is undeniable.
I hope in death that he is able to find the peace that so eluded him in life. For my part, I'll join the crowd in downloading his music, celebrating the gift that he gave us while he was here of his immense, extraordinary talent.
